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Total disregard of science from mainstream left and right when it suits them

  • 10-07-2018 03:01PM
    #1
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭


    See post 35 for the edited version which is more correct.

    Something I've been mulling over recently. How the left and the right both totally disregard science when it suits them. Below I've outlined some of the ridiculous positions.

    Here in Ireland our media and culture is heavily left leaning so we get the typical left leaning science denial:
    • Gender is a social construct - men and women are identical in every way except when they aren't. Yet people are born gay. So being straight is a social construct while being gay isn't. Also toxic masculinity exists, and is socially constructed, but it must be the mothers and mainly female teachers of these toxic men that are training them to be toxic?
    • If men and women, ethnic and gender groups are not represented in certain prestigious careers in exact proportion to their incidence in the population, it must be discrimination, while less attractive occupations are ignored (bin collectors, mining etc), or occupations that are overwhelmingly women (medicine, psychology, nursing) or LGBT (media, acting), or all female boards of directors are seen as "victories for equality"
    • Global warming is real, but the obvious solution of nuclear power is seen as evil and dangerous, despite it being by far and away the safest, most reliable and cleanest form of energy we have that can ACTUALLY replace fossil fuels and not send us back to the 1500s.
    • Western men are sexist if they suggest a woman shouldn't wear a tight mini skirt and in your face boobs in the workplace while men have to conform to a rigid dress code in the office, yet Muslim men telling their women to cover their faces is somehow empowering.
    • Palestinians good, Israelis bad
    • Young men who stare at women a little too long who dress with their arse cheeks hanging out or barely any clothes with stuffed bras somehow have something wrong with them, but a man who walked around with his arse cheeks showing, or their package enhanced, would be stared at, ridiculed and/or arrested.
    • Religion has nothing whatsoever of value and is totally evil. Unless it's Islam.

    The right:
    • People choose to be gay because they are depraved perverts.
    • Global warming is a hoax. Continuing to drive the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere beyond levels seen 350000 years ago and on a long cycle will have no affect on the climate despite 98% of scientists saying otherwise.
    • The bible is literally true
    • Israelis good, Palestinians bad
    • ALL immigrants are evil and out to take your job. Unless they are cleaning your house or minding your kids for a pittance.
    • The Koran is full of terrible advice about stoning people and is therefore a book of war but the Old Testament, which preaches pretty much the same thing isn't.

    Mentioning you think anything off this list isn't true will get you attacked online. The media all follow one or the other narrative.


«134

Comments

  • #2
    TheValeyard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,777 ✭✭✭✭TheValeyard


    Facts and truth don't seem to be needed these days when you got popular opinion instead. It's dangerous. The extremes on both sides are at it. Everyones at it. 67% of all groups are making up their own facts and figures.

    Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue



  • #3
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    This post has been deleted.


  • #4
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    I agree with pretty much everything you've said except the conflation of religion with science, which seems odd. The left's rejection of religion has nothing to do with science, it's about rejecting socially authoritarian cultural values which most religions (with the possible exception of Buddhism) tend to demand of their followers and society at large.

    Also, what has the Israel/Palestine conflict got to do with science? The reason it divides along left and right lines is fairly obvious, believing that territory can be "won" in war regardless of the consent of its residents is a very right wing belief, while the left rejects the idea that power and victory matter more than moral and ethical right and wrong. That's a fairly simple dichotomy to understand, but it's not exactly a scientific issue.


  • #5
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    You have only discovered now that people can appropriate science to suit their own purpose

    Karl Popper

    "It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.
    Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
    No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude".


  • #6
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    O and I thought the immigrant were here for the welfare and free houses.


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  • #7
    Captain Obvious
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,165 ✭✭✭Captain Obvious


    You've mostly chosen opinions. Apart from the global warming issue these are mostly ideological differences and not simply ignoring science. Many of them appear to be your own biased interpretation of opinions you don't like too. In reality, most people have much more complex opinions and understandings of all the issues you have simplified so poorly.


  • #8
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    ....... wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    I'm using gender in it's original meaning and how it was always used here until the late 80s:
    Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories.[1][2] However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today the distinction is strictly followed in some contexts, especially the social sciences[4][5] and documents written by the World Health Organization (WHO).[3]


  • #9
    Ragnar Lothbrok
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,860 ✭✭✭Ragnar Lothbrok


    Any person with any strong opinion can easily fool themselves into ignoring logic, science, common sense etc whenever it suits them.

    Looking back to my youth when I was a hardline communist and Stalinist, I now realise that I ignored a whole truck-load of evidence, which at the time I dismissed as CIA propaganda :D


  • #10
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    hatrickpatrick wrote: »
    I agree with pretty much everything you've said except the conflation of religion with science, which seems odd. The left's rejection of religion has nothing to do with science, it's about rejecting socially authoritarian cultural values which most religions (with the possible exception of Buddhism) tend to demand of their followers and society at large.

    Also, what has the Israel/Palestine conflict got to do with science? The reason it divides along left and right lines is fairly obvious, believing that territory can be "won" in war regardless of the consent of its residents is a very right wing belief, while the left rejects the idea that power and victory matter more than moral and ethical right and wrong. That's a fairly simple dichotomy to understand, but it's not exactly a scientific issue.

    Well I guess the search for truth is the ultimate goal of science.


  • #11
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    Captain Obvious wrote: »
    You've mostly chosen opinions. Apart from the global warming issue these are mostly ideological differences and not simply ignoring science. Many of them appear to be your own biased interpretation of opinions you don't like too. In reality, most people have much more complex opinions and understandings of all the issues you have simplified so poorly.

    Nope. There is a weight of scientific evidence for every point I've made (except the political stuff, which are so clearly double standards they require no further explanation). I don't care about political positions, I only care about what the weight of the evidence says.


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  • #12
    ohnonotgmail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,365 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    professore wrote: »
    I'm using gender in it's original meaning and how it was always used here until the late 80s:


    It is not the 1980's any more. The world has moved on as is our understanding. You complain about others ignorance of science and then decide to ignore science you dont agree with.


  • #13
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Ragnar Lothbrok wrote: »
    Any person with any strong opinion can easily fool themselves into ignoring logic, science, common sense etc whenever it suits them.

    Looking back to my youth when I was a hardline communist and Stalinist, I now realise that I ignored a whole truck-load of evidence, which at the time I dismissed as CIA propaganda :D

    The reason you or anyone ignored evidence is always more interesting than the fact that evidence is ignored.


  • #14
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 18,046 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    zGHQb4O.gif


  • #15
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Well in many cases 'science' isn't clear cut, right or wrong either. In fact it pretty much can never be, we just take it as such. In most areas though there will be a consensus of current thought that we can go by


  • #16
    Hector Savage
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,809 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


    Thats why it's good to have a mix of opinions from right and left , and be stuck somewhere in the middle ...


  • #17
    ElKavo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 857 ✭✭✭ElKavo


    Plants CRAVE electrolytes!

    That is where we are headed.


  • #18
    Varik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,549 ✭✭✭✭Varik


    Video and book is a few years old. Most is still relevant.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pess_UpSCZ8


  • #19
    El Weirdo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,651 ✭✭✭✭El Weirdo


    professore wrote: »
    • If men and women, ethnic and gender groups are not represented in certain prestigious careers in exact proportion to their incidence in the population, it must be discrimination, while less attractive occupations are ignored (bin collectors, mining etc), or occupations that are overwhelmingly women (medicine, psychology, nursing) or LGBT (media, acting), or all female boards of directors are seen as "victories for equality"
    • Western men are sexist if they suggest a woman shouldn't wear a tight mini skirt and in your face boobs in the workplace while men have to conform to a rigid dress code in the office, yet Muslim men telling their women to cover their faces is somehow empowering.
    • Palestinians good, Israelis bad
    • Young men who stare at women a little too long who dress with their arse cheeks hanging out or barely any clothes with stuffed bras somehow have something wrong with them, but a man who walked around with his arse cheeks showing, or their package enhanced, would be stared at, ridiculed and/or arrested.
    • Religion has nothing whatsoever of value and is totally evil. Unless it's Islam.

    The right:
    • The bible is literally true
    • Israelis good, Palestinians bad
    • ALL immigrants are evil and out to take your job. Unless they are cleaning your house or minding your kids for a pittance.
    • The Koran is full of terrible advice about stoning people and is therefore a book of war but the Old Testament, which preaches pretty much the same thing isn't.

    What have any of these got to do with science?


  • #20
    ohnonotgmail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,365 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    ElKavo wrote: »
    Plants CRAVE electrolytes!

    That is where we are headed.


    that took me a second.


  • #21
    Ragnar Lothbrok
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,860 ✭✭✭Ragnar Lothbrok


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The reason you or anyone ignored evidence is always more interesting than the fact that evidence is ignored.

    I suppose it was due to blind faith. I believed the so-called communist countries were workers' paradises and that the only faults there were caused by spies and saboteurs! The "facts" about the Eastern Bloc that came from the USSR were totally acceptable to me, whereas the "facts" about the Eastern Bloc that came from the BBC etc were dismissed as lies and anti-Soviet propaganda.

    "Evidence" can always be perverted and a true believer will only ever believe the "evidence" that supports their beliefs.


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  • #22
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 16,208 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    El Weirdo wrote: »
    What have any of these got to do with science?

    In many of his examples, science, or more often, psychology is used as justification for them.


  • #23
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    This post has been deleted.


  • #24
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    ohnonotgmail wrote: »
    It is not the 1980's any more. The world has moved on as is our understanding. You complain about others ignorance of science and then decide to ignore science you dont agree with.

    Redefining a word isn't science. Sex is indeed the correct term now for what I was referring to, not gender.


  • #25
    TheValeyard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,777 ✭✭✭✭TheValeyard


    ElKavo wrote: »
    Plants CRAVE electrolytes!

    That is where we are headed.

    Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?

    Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue



  • #26
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    El Weirdo wrote: »
    What have any of these got to do with science?

    A lot of them can be proven using statistics. The rest are indeed political points that contradict each other.


  • #27
    LLMMLL
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,593 ✭✭✭LLMMLL


    professore wrote: »
    Something I've been mulling over recently. How the left and the right both totally disregard science when it suits them. Below I've outlined some of the ridiculous positions.

    Here in Ireland our media and culture is heavily left leaning so we get the typical left leaning science denial:
    • Gender is a social construct - men and women are identical in every way except when they aren't. Yet people are born gay. So being straight is a social construct while being gay isn't. Also toxic masculinity exists, and is socially constructed, but it must be the mothers and mainly female teachers of these toxic men that are training them to be toxic?
    • If men and women, ethnic and gender groups are not represented in certain prestigious careers in exact proportion to their incidence in the population, it must be discrimination, while less attractive occupations are ignored (bin collectors, mining etc), or occupations that are overwhelmingly women (medicine, psychology, nursing) or LGBT (media, acting), or all female boards of directors are seen as "victories for equality"
    • Global warming is real, but the obvious solution of nuclear power is seen as evil and dangerous, despite it being by far and away the safest, most reliable and cleanest form of energy we have that can ACTUALLY replace fossil fuels and not send us back to the 1500s.
    • Western men are sexist if they suggest a woman shouldn't wear a tight mini skirt and in your face boobs in the workplace while men have to conform to a rigid dress code in the office, yet Muslim men telling their women to cover their faces is somehow empowering.
    • Palestinians good, Israelis bad
    • Young men who stare at women a little too long who dress with their arse cheeks hanging out or barely any clothes with stuffed bras somehow have something wrong with them, but a man who walked around with his arse cheeks showing, or their package enhanced, would be stared at, ridiculed and/or arrested.
    • Religion has nothing whatsoever of value and is totally evil. Unless it's Islam.

    The right:
    • People choose to be gay because they are depraved perverts.
    • Global warming is a hoax. Continuing to drive the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere beyond levels seen 350000 years ago and on a long cycle will have no affect on the climate despite 98% of scientists saying otherwise.
    • The bible is literally true
    • Israelis good, Palestinians bad
    • ALL immigrants are evil and out to take your job. Unless they are cleaning your house or minding your kids for a pittance.
    • The Koran is full of terrible advice about stoning people and is therefore a book of war but the Old Testament, which preaches pretty much the same thing isn't.

    Mentioning you think anything off this list isn't true will get you attacked online. The media all follow one or the other narrative.

    Not sure you know what science is......


  • #28
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    riffmongous wrote: »
    Well in many cases 'science' isn't clear cut, right or wrong either. In fact it pretty much can never be, we just take it as such. In most areas though there will be a consensus of current thought that we can go by

    Science is - or should be - the best explanation based on the facts that are at hand at the time. For example a scientist doesn't "believe" in global warming. They invesigate it, read the mechanisms how it might take place, try to disprove it etc. Ideology is "I don't believe in global warming" and their "research" consists of listening to some crackpot on YouTube.


  • #29
    _Dara_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,971 ✭✭✭_Dara_


    professore wrote: »
    Nope. There is a weight of scientific evidence for every point I've made (except the political stuff, which are so clearly double standards they require no further explanation). I don't care about political positions, I only care about what the weight of the evidence says.

    There’s a weight of scientific evidence for the “arse cheeks, barely any clothes” bullet point? (not honing in that point for any particular reason. It’s an example)


  • #30
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭professore


    LLMMLL wrote: »
    Not sure you know what science is......

    I do. I kind of forgot what the title of the post was half way though and made it more broad than science ....


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  • #31
    ohnonotgmail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,365 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    professore wrote: »
    Redefining a word isn't science. Sex is indeed the correct term now for what I was referring to, not gender.


    well i am pretty sure we are living in the now so why not use the term we use now? or is it a just a cheap attempt to prove some point on your behalf?


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